The demand from consumers and industry for sustainably produced and healthy ingredients for food and pharmaceuticals has increased. The modification of polar lipid-rich oat oils using enzyme technology offers the possibility to obtain liquid crystalline phases (LCPs) with diverse structural arrangements.
We here present a novel, low-energy, and sustainable one-step enzymatic process that makes oat oil lipids self-assemble into desired types of gel-like LCPs without the need for additional surfactants or stabilisers. Small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryoTEM), allowed us to determine the phase behaviour and structure of the formed LCPs, which could be related to the lipid composition as determined by thin layer chromatography (TLC). Functional additives, such as curcumin, vitamin D, and octyl glucoside, incorporated into the LCPs, highlighted the possibility to tailor the system for different applications. Enzymatic processing using lipolytic enzymes can be used to control the conversion of oat oil with the polar lipid content ranging from 15 to 60 wt% into LCPs with either lamellar, micellar cubic (Fd3m) or reversed hexagonal internal structure with potential applications in drug delivery, nutraceuticals, and food formulations.